Modern World Chapter 20: World War II

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Germany needed more lebensraum, or living space for its expanding population

League of Nations and failures re: Italy, Japan and Germany aggression

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Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor

when the Japanese invaded Indochina, FDR demanded that they leave and froze all of Japan's American assets. Japen decided to go to war with the USA, viewing the country as a threat to its goals to expand East.

Appeasement define and why did it fail

granting concessions to maintain peace. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain stated that through this process Europe would become stablized and Hitler would not be of any kind of threat to the world.

VE Day

May 7, 1945; the Germans surrendered. the next day was considered a celebration to the Allies

D Day

June 6, 1944; Operation Overlord, the day of attack

VJ Day

August 14, 1945; Japan surrendered. September 2 was then proclaimed Victory over Japan Day.

Blitzkrieg

"lightning war"; new German strategy aimed at taking the enemy by surprise

Sitzkrieg

"sit-down war"; called the "phony war" by the West

Scorched earth policy

policy introduced by Stalin; if the Germans forced the Soviets to retreat, Soviet citizens would destroy anything that could possibly be used by the Germans

New Order

issued by Hitler: the Nazis would rule Europe and exploit its resources and eliminated any "undesirable elements" (Jews and Slavs)

Erwin Rommel

commander of Afrika Korps, applied blitzkrieg tactics to warfare in the desert